


if i fall forward

by mazies



Series: our lonely limbs [1]
Category: New Girl (TV 2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Light Angst, au: jess moves out of the loft, i can't commit to multichapter slow burn, so have a one-shot series instead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 05:53:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29095320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mazies/pseuds/mazies
Summary: The metaphor of a closed door just feels different now when you remember that the room on the other side is empty.
Relationships: Jessica Day/Nick Miller
Series: our lonely limbs [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2134692
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	if i fall forward

**Author's Note:**

> originally titled: whenever and wherever and however
> 
> i wanted a 'Jess moves out in season 6' au... but not Tragic
> 
> ideally, this would be long fic, but the way each "chapter" has been written is very different and the timeline is also all kinds of all over the place. so it makes more sense for me to make it a series rather than a whole fic. plus that's a lot more sustainable for me

Life is a cruel bitch, and she can't even let closed doors stay closed.

Nick has to close it whenever he sees Jess's door open, which is pretty much all the time these days.

Then the door is shut and it _should be_ shut, and that way he can convince himself that Jessica Day is in her room still. She's in there and he just doesn't want to walk through it, can't walk through it. (It's a closed door.)

The door is never shut though, and he sees through it every time.

The room is empty and it's a reminder that — as Pepperwood fans put it — he blew it, badly. It's a weird experience, breaking the same thing twice.

The first few days, he doesn't get to dwell on it, but he needs to dwell on it or else he'll go insane.

Merle keeps him busy with the book deal. They toe the line of how many changes Nick would be willing to make to his story. (His adamance on not losing Jessica Night is only reinforced.)

Schmidt tries to be there when he can, but with the baby news, he isn't as present as he can be. Cece is unavailable for the same reasons. It's barely been a week but the two of them are all hands on deck.

Aly and Winston are each on opposite ends of 'helpful' for Nick, but he can't talk to either of them anyway. They're on a roadtrip, to Portland. It doesn't need a lot of brain power to know why. Winston texts sparsely while he isn't driving, and never about Jess. Mostly detailed instructions for Furguson-care, in case Furguson isn't busy being "Sweatshirt" for that girl in the apartment on the other side of the building.

(Winston did text about Jess. Once. After they dropped off her stuff at a storage unit that night, to tell him that they would take the weekend to drive with Jess all the way to Portland and help her get settled in. And, why couldn't they just take a plane, you know?)

And Nick basically burned bridges with Reagan after that train to San Diego move. Not that he could talk to her much anyway.

Tran has always been a great sounding board, someone Nick could always talk to.

But it isn't having someone to talk to. It's about having Jess.

In any capacity.

His friends sit him around the table when they can. Winston surrenders Jess's keys, no keychain attached, and they explain.

All they tell him is Jess had to leave. Overreacting, they agreed. Cowardly, they said. Jess had just decided it was time to go. Which, if it were the truth, then Jess would have told him, right?

He started expecting to find Jess somewhere sometimes, keeping her head down and hiding from him, being her newly squirrelly self. She might have thought he didn't notice but he's been attuned to the workings of Jessica Day for years, and a few weeks in New Orleans would never have changed that.

He saw her at the bank the day he got back. It's hard not to notice when Jessica Day is in the room, after all. She kept her head down, squirmed away when he leaned closer. He tried not to consider the logistics of why she was avoiding him like that then, but he can't help but consider it now. Because Jess avoiding him is a lot kinder to believe than Jess moving out of the loft for good.

Overreacting and cowardly. What better overreaction than to move out of the loft completely. But what happened, why overreact at all? Did he do something.... did she do something?

He learns to stop expecting.

Cece's phone rings and everyone knows immediately who it is. She glances at the caller ID and presses her lips together, just to confirm it for everyone. "It's Jess."

She runs off to Jess's room, empty room, phone pressed to her ear. There's an awkward silence as the door clicks shut. Everyone knows why.

Winston speaks up. "Look, man, we all tried to talk Jess out of it. We really did." As if anyone could ever really talk Jess out of anything.

That thought makes Nick feel worse.

She wanted to move out. She's not just avoiding him, she wanted out.

Jessica Day ran to Portland without goodbye, then she wasn't answering his calls, then she was moving out of the loft. And now he has to hope that she'll be back with him, back with their friends, just _back_.

Nick feels they've been through too much for it all to close with a French Exit, an Irish Goodbye.

_Your relationship actually meant something to you and you ended it like it didn't._

Oh god, is this how Reagan felt?

Reagan was rightly mad at him. Nick doesn't want to be mad at Jess. He just... he just wants to _understand_.

Cece returns eventually, heels clicking on the laminate flooring. ("She just wanted an update on the baby," she whispers to Schmidt. And it's hard to keep it from Nick that Jess is coming back to LA for every appointment, because Cece is pregnant and even if Jess is a coward, there is no way she's missing her best friend's pregnancy.)

Cece walks up and places a hand on Nick's shoulder. It's comforting as much as she can ever comfort Nick. Schmidt scoots closer and places his hand on Nick's other shoulder too. Instead of barely comforting, it's just weird.

"She thought it would be too hard to tell you," Cece feeds the lie Jess wrote, "She avoided the conversation until she had to go."

That didn't seem like Jess, but a lot of Jess recently didn't seem like her either.

"We tried to talk her into telling you about it, too. Also no results." Winston shrugs.

Cece's grip on his shoulder seems to get a little tighter. "Listen, Nick, she'll be back in the summer. Just... just let her have the space she's asking for. Three months."

(And now they've let it slip.)

"Like you and New Orleans. Except Portland isn't that humid, and it's also a lot whiter. And Jess is single—"

"I think Cece and Mount Shasta is a much better analogy than Nick and Nola."

"Let's not talk about Mount Shasta, Winston."

(Mount Shasta. The time Cece literally climbed a mountain to get over Schmidt. An analogy like that, they may as well have just come clean to Nick completely.

"I don't see why we couldn't just tell him why Jess wanted to leave. Look at the man! He might go full Caroline!"

"We can't tell Nick because Jess is still coming back and if we tell him, she might not want to come back."

And Cece's right. Of course she's right.)

The door still won't stay closed.

Nick misses her every hour. And the worst part is how that catches him completely by surprise.

He would find himself walking around looking for her. Not for any reason, just out of habit, because he saw something he wants to tell her about, or he just wants to hear her voice. And it's summer, she should be home.

Then he'd realize she isn't anymore.

And every time, _every time_ , it's like the wind is knocked out of him.

And there he thought they were friends no matter what. (No matter attraction, feelings, love.)

There he thought they would always have each other.

He learns to leave the door alone.


End file.
